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<span class="breadcrumb-node">Snapshot and restore</span>
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<div class="part">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h1 class="title">
<a id="snapshot-restore"></a>Snapshot and restore<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/snapshot-restore/index.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h1>
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<div class="openblock partintro">
<div class="content">
<p>A <em>snapshot</em> is a backup taken from a running Elasticsearch cluster.
You can take snapshots of individual indices or of the entire cluster.
Snapshots can be stored in either local or remote repositories.
Remote repositories can reside on S3, HDFS, Azure, Google Cloud Storage,
and other platforms supported by a repository plugin.</p>
<p>Snapshots are incremental: each snapshot of an index only stores data that
is not part of an earlier snapshot.
This enables you to take frequent snapshots with minimal overhead.</p>
<p>You can restore snapshots to a running cluster with the <a class="xref" href="snapshots-restore-snapshot.html" title="Restore indices from a snapshot">restore API</a>.
By default, all indices in the snapshot are restored.
Alternatively, you can restore specific indices or restore the cluster state from a snapshot.
When restoring indices, you can modify the index name and selected index settings.</p>
<p>You must <a class="xref" href="snapshots-register-repository.html" title="Register a snapshot repository">register a snapshot repository</a>
before you can <a class="xref" href="snapshots-take-snapshot.html" title="Take a snapshot of one or more indices">take snapshots</a>.</p>
<p>You can use <a class="xref" href="getting-started-snapshot-lifecycle-management.html" title="Tutorial: Automate backups with SLM">snapshot lifecycle management</a>
to automatically take and manage snapshots.</p>
<div class="warning admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>You cannot back up an Elasticsearch cluster by simply copying
the data directories of all of its nodes. Elasticsearch may be making changes to
the contents of its data directories while it is running; copying its data
directories cannot be expected to capture a consistent picture of their contents.
If you try to restore a cluster from such a backup, it may fail and report
corruption and/or missing files. Alternatively, it may appear to have succeeded
though it silently lost some of its data. The only reliable way to back up a
cluster is by using the snapshot and restore functionality.</p>
</div>
</div>
<h3>
<a id="snapshot-restore-version-compatibility"></a>Version compatibility<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/snapshot-restore/index.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h3>
<div class="important admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>Version compatibility refers to the underlying Lucene index
compatibility. Follow the <a class="xref" href="setup-upgrade.html" title="Upgrade Elasticsearch">Upgrade documentation</a>
when migrating between versions.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>A snapshot contains a copy of the on-disk data structures that make up an
index. This means that snapshots can only be restored to versions of
Elasticsearch that can read the indices:</p>
<div class="ulist itemizedlist">
<ul class="itemizedlist">
<li class="listitem">
A snapshot of an index created in 6.x can be restored to 7.x.
</li>
<li class="listitem">
A snapshot of an index created in 5.x can be restored to 6.x.
</li>
<li class="listitem">
A snapshot of an index created in 2.x can be restored to 5.x.
</li>
<li class="listitem">
A snapshot of an index created in 1.x can be restored to 2.x.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Conversely, snapshots of indices created in 1.x <span class="strong strong"><strong>cannot</strong></span> be restored to 5.x
or 6.x, snapshots of indices created in 2.x <span class="strong strong"><strong>cannot</strong></span> be restored to 6.x
or 7.x, and snapshots of indices created in 5.x <span class="strong strong"><strong>cannot</strong></span> be restored to 7.x
or 8.x.</p>
<p>We do not recommend restoring snapshots from later Elasticsearch versions in earlier
versions. In some cases, the snapshots cannot be restored. For example, a
snapshot taken in 7.6.0 cannot be restored to 7.5.0.</p>
<p>Each snapshot can contain indices created in various versions of Elasticsearch,
and when restoring a snapshot it must be possible to restore all of the indices
into the target cluster. If any indices in a snapshot were created in an
incompatible version, you will not be able restore the snapshot.</p>
<div class="important admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>When backing up your data prior to an upgrade, keep in mind that you
won’t be able to restore snapshots after you upgrade if they contain indices
created in a version that’s incompatible with the upgrade version.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>If you end up in a situation where you need to restore a snapshot of an index
that is incompatible with the version of the cluster you are currently running,
you can restore it on the latest compatible version and use
<a class="xref" href="docs-reindex.html#reindex-from-remote" title="Reindex from remote">reindex-from-remote</a> to rebuild the index on the current
version. Reindexing from remote is only possible if the original index has
source enabled. Retrieving and reindexing the data can take significantly
longer than simply restoring a snapshot. If you have a large amount of data, we
recommend testing the reindex from remote process with a subset of your data to
understand the time requirements before proceeding.</p>
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